Rosario, Argentina: the People’s Perspective

As I was planning for this research project, I wasn’t anticipating including public discourse in my analyses because I didn’t know how I would find sources of information. In Rosario, it turned out to be quite easy. In the five days that I was there, I stumbled upon many public examples of conversations about biotechnology, including anti-Monsanto graffiti, the premiere of a documentary criticizing the region’s soybean production, and a science museum with several mentions of GMOs.

Anti-Monsanto graffiti under a street sign in Rosario

A genetically modified soybean on display in the Natural Science Museum in Rosario

Visiting INDEAR, which is housed on a CONICET research complex

I also ended up hearing a lot of random people’s opinions on the matter in an exchanges that usually went as follows:

The setting: Me, chilling in a [bus station/taxi/guided tour/…] reveling in the fact that I’m blending in so well compared to my time in other foreign countries because there are plenty of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Argentines.

Random Argentine [bus passenger/taxi driver/tourist/…]: Where are you from?

Me: (Dang, it must have been my comfortable walking shoes that gave me away) the United States, Chicago to be exact.

Argentine: What are you doing here?

Me: I’m doing a study about GMOs here in Argentina

Argentine (seeming a bit suspicious of me): And are you for them or against them?

Me: I don’t have a very strong opinion because there are so many different types. What do you think?

Argentine: Well, I don’t know much, but my [brother/daughter/friend] told me about a [neighbor/community/person in a news story] that [said studies show they’re safe/banned GMOs/got cancer from the use of agrochemicals]. In any case, I just don’t think we know enough about them to know they’re safe…

Me: Oh okay, could you expand on that?

Argentine: [Lengthy explanation on what they’ve heard]

I want to emphasize two main themes from my conversations: first, that everyone either took a positive or negative stance on GMOs, with more people leaning negative. Second, that many people were critical of GMOs because they didn’t think that we know enough about them.

On the first point, you may be thinking, of course they’re going to have a positive or negative opinion: what other type exists? With some issues, especially political ones, there is no way to have a middle ground. With GMOs on the other hand, there is no biological factor stopping a farmer from using organic soil conservation techniques and planting a seed that has been genetically modifed. Nonetheless, in today’s system, herbicide tolerance is the most common trait, so it isn’t surprising that people equate GMOs with industrial agriculture and chemical application.

At the natural science museum in Rosario, there was a video about agriculture in one of the exhibits. It showed two types of agriculture: agroecology, represented by hard-working farmers, chirping birds, and glistening strawberries; and conventional agriculture, represented by big machines, flashing red warning noises, and endless fields of soybeans. When I asked the director of the video about its purpose, he said that he wanted to present another side of the story because in Rosario, there is a great deal of pro-GMO sentiment. This observation was interesting because people who were “pro-GMO” often said that most people were anti-GMO. The division into these conflicting sides fascinated me, and made me doubt whether the consensus could move to the middle even if new traits such as drought tolerance reduce the amount resources required for food production.

On the second point: a conversation I had with one of the scientists at INDEAR perhaps explains why the public feels like we don’t know enough about GMOs. The scientist said that on average, the scientific and regulatory process for developing a GM crop takes 13 years. 13 years. During this time, they test the trait in every way imaginable for possible health and environmental risks. The average person, however, only reads about the “discovery” of a new GM trait once it’s released, making it seem like a sudden phenomenon. I’m not sure if there’s a solution to this problem, but I think it arises from the contrasting priorities of the press and science: the media operates around strict deadlines, confirmed facts, and definite events; on the other hand, the scientific world progresses gradually and is reluctant to declare anything with certainty. It would would be difficult to write an intriguing story about a drought-resistant soybean that might be released in five years, but might also fall into a black hole of regulatory chaos and be put on hold for another decade. Thus, the public only hears about biotechnology when it’s released, not the years of research behind it.

Thanks for getting through a long post – I hope you found it interesting. I’ll post more photos once I figure out some technical problems. In the meantime, I’m currently waiting in the Buenos Aires airport to go to São Paulo. Hasta luego, Argentina and Olá Brazil!

5 Comments

I think this is interesting. It’s like science hasn’t learned from the whole climate change debacle. The key is to continue to engage w/ the general public during the process, so everyone is aware of and having dialogue through the process. There needs to be a realization that these discoveries are not eureka moments but that it’s a process. It will do science a lot of good to stay engaged (not relying on the media to do so) instead of expecting the general public to accept discoveries without knowing the facts and information behind them.

I’m just catching up with all of the previous posts, and they’ve elicited varied responses. The first post triggered a strong, negative reaction. Genetic modifications that allow for herbicide spraying are exactly why consumers should be suspicious of GMOs. Do I think there’s great potential in rice genetically modified to deliver vitamin A, saving at-risk populations from vitamin-A deficiency and resulting blindness? Of course! That sounds great!* But most GMOs, as I appreciate the blog pointing out, promote the use of chemicals that are detrimental to human health. Even people who dismiss concerns about their own ingestion of these chemicals cannot justify the ultimatum farmers and farmworkers face of working with these hazardous chemicals or losing their livelihood to competition (an ultimatum dealt by a society that allows the use of these chemicals). Studies can easily be found that show the links between working with these chemicals (even as safely as possible without major mishaps) and health impacts from vomiting to neurological deficiencies.
The next couple posts, though, surprised and delighted me. I am thrilled to hear that GMO wariness is so visible and well known in Chile and Argentina. I don’t think most people in an American bus station would be able to talk about GMOs for a lack of baseline knowledge.
Yet, I was suffering from typical American elitism, which I was also happy for the blog to point out. In talking with other Americans about sustainability, a concern often arises that developing nations are striving for the well-oiled American dream, and it will be an awfully tough pill for them to swallow if Americans tell them they can’t have it in the name of environmentalism.
It’s great news that people around the world are quite informed and not in need of any American to tell them about sustainability. In fact, it sounds like our anti-GMO campaigns could learn a lot from those in Chile and Argentina. (Can I get some graffiti, please?) Now, I just have to worry about how we overcome the impact that the American-elitist arguments have in America….
*Going back to GMO projects that even have the potential to help people. One of the posts mentioned that the development and regulatory process for GMOs is thirteen years with the implication that thirteen years is a long time. Eating food is at the center of human life, something that people would ideally be doing every day of their life, which would ideally be decades and decades long. Without regulation, people will be eating GMOs their entire lives. Thirteen years will not reveal the impacts of a lifetime of GMO consumption. Even in the case of modifications that seem well-intentioned, there could be seriously negative side effects.
Thalidomide was deemed safe at one point, in part because we did not know that medicine could pass from mother to unborn child. Methylmercury dumping was not acknowledged as the cause of severe neurological issues (now known as Minamata disease) in Minamata, Japan for thirty-six years (1932-1968). Some historians postulate that the lead poisoning suffered in ancient Rome, from lead dishes and lead-plated aqueducts, contributed to the empire’s decline. History is rife with examples of humans’ lack of understanding being revealed by ignorant development whose consequences took decades to recognize. We’ve been eating non-genetically modified food for millions of years. Millions of years. Thirteen years might not be long enough to really understand the potential side effects of genetically modified food.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment! In Argentina people seemed very wary of the health effects that herbicide application might have on workers and rural residents. It was interesting to me that this was one of the first things that people mentioned when GMOs came up, because I don’t think we talk about it as much in the U.S. I would be interested to see why this difference exisits, but my guess is that we haven’t had a super public anti-agrochemical legal case such as the one they had in Cordoba a few years ago.

As for the 13 years of testing – I’m not meaning to say that there is no possibility of GM crops turning out to have unforseen consequences in the future. However, consumers put a great deal of trust in scientific processes every day assuming that researchers and regulators have mitigated risk to the best of their ability. Why are people comfortable drinking municipal water, flying in an airplane, or taking a drug, even though they don’t necessarily understand the science behind what makes these actions appear safe? And why are people so wary of unforseen consequences of GMOs while it take crises such as Flint, Malaysia Flight 370, or Thalidomide before people question these other factors? I’ve become really interested in these questions, and I think the difference is that food is such an emotional, cultural, human thing. In today’s society, we choose where to place our trust with the knowledge that we can never completely eliminate risk. What makes GMOs different?

I definitely second food as an emotional, cultural force. (Interesting how its status as such contributes to people’s wariness of GMOs but also makes it an arena in which people are averse to change, e.g. even sustainability activists who organize protests on fossil fuel refuse to give up environmentally harmful foods.) I would also add, as a difference between flights/medicine and food, that food is something relevant to every person every day. It’s not just an aspect of our lives or a means to improving quality of life. It provides life.

Are people talking about the drought in Guatemala? I just read this Al-Jazeera article, which called your research to mind (www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/guatemala-drought-leaves-hundreds-thousands-hungry-160629093644626.html). At first, I was thinking along the lines of: I wonder how people would feel about GMOs that help drought resistance. The comments at the end of the article about topsoil, though, brought me back to the principles of traditional, organic farming that are essentially focused on maintaining soil. (As one of the farmers [Glenn Roberts], in the documentary Organic Rising, said, “We only farm soil. We don’t farm for yield and never did. In a land-raised system, you farm for decades to build soil. That’s the bank. The crops are incidental.”)

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